Wanderers

by Susan Kim

  Esther again moved toward her, but Aras’s grip on her arm was like a steel cuff. Behind her, she could sense Eli, Skar, and the others staring with shock.

  “Don’t no one get near!” Aras shouted. But as Rhea’s panicked gaze flickered across the others, it found what it was looking for.

  “Esther . . . help me!”

  Esther flinched and, again, tried to break free.

  “Help me!” Paddling like a dog, Rhea was only visible from the neck up: a human head that looked more like a naked skull bobbing up and down in a sea of dead leaves and torn rubber. Her voice was ingratiating, fawning, and Esther wanted to put her hands to her ears. “I know you can do it. I know you can.” She spit out the water seeping into her mouth.

  “Esther! Your sister and I were so close. For Sarah’s sake, Esther. Save me!”

  It was a lie: Rhea had been nothing but cruel to Sarah, tormenting her for years. But Esther could bear it no longer. She yanked free of Aras and ran to the wagon for a rope. Fashioning one end into a noose, she tossed it toward Rhea, where it landed on the surface of wet leaves and torn tarp. Buried to the neck, the girl struggled to reach it.

  But at a command, Pilot was already lunging at Esther, dragging Aras with him. Flailing his free arm, the guide grabbed her shoulder. Again, Esther broke free.

  “We can still get her out,” she said.

  “Don’t you get it?” he shouted. “She already dead!”

  Esther knew he was right; yet she shook off the memory of how the disease had eaten away her sister, day by day. “We can take care of her,” she replied stubbornly. “I can take care of her.”

  “We taking time for nothing,” said Aras in a rough voice. “And even if you get her out, we got little enough to eat as it is.”

  Appalled, Esther was about to reply when she was jerked to the edge of the pit. Rhea had grabbed hold of the noose and was pulling with all her strength. Eli made a move to help her, but Aras was there first. Locating her with his free hand, he elbowed Esther to the side, jabbing her once, hard, in the stomach.

  Esther fell to the ground, the rope flying from her hands. It slithered like a snake into the leafy mess, where it sank, beyond reach.

  It was only now that Rhea seemed to understand what had happened to her. A wave of panic crossed her face. Then she began to shriek, still clawing at the shredded rubber floating around her, slapping the water with her palms.

  Esther crouched on the ground, wheezing painfully, when she felt something wet nudge her arm. It was Pilot, with Aras behind him.

  “Let’s go,” he said over the screams. “Ain’t nothing left to do.”

  Skar pulled Esther to her feet. Then one by one, everyone turned around and began drifting from the backyard. No one said anything; and no one looked at Silas, white-faced with shock, who trailed far behind the others. Only Asha, trembling, kept her hands pressed against her ears.

  Soon the house was well behind them. The sound of shrieking grew fainter and fainter.

  And then it stopped.

  Ten

  AS THE CARAVAN MADE ITS WAY DOWN THE TWO-LANE HIGHWAY, NO one spoke. The only sound was the clank of bicycle gears and the incessant creak of the makeshift wagons as they shifted in their traces.

  Esther sensed a change in the way the others viewed Aras. Even though he had once won their trust, now they avoided him. Only Skar appeared untroubled; while somber, she seemed serene as she calmed a shaken Michal. But Silas, who had been closest to Rhea from the start, hung back, whispering to Joseph and Asha.

  As for Eli, he was clearly furious. “He’s got to go,” he hissed to Esther when he caught up to her. Yet she refused to be pulled into an argument and bicycled ahead.

  Esther knew that Aras’s decision had been the right one. It was not only more sensible to let Rhea die quickly, but kinder, as well. Or did she just feel that way because she had never liked Rhea? With an uneasy feeling, Esther realized she didn’t know for certain and wasn’t sure if she ever would.

  By now, the muscles in her legs burned so badly that each downward movement of the pedal took enormous effort. Still, she kept to the front of the caravan, setting a steady pace so the others could keep up.

  Everyone except Joseph and Kai still had to take turns on the remaining bicycles; but because of the steep grade, this had become a chore rather than a welcome break. To Esther’s surprise, Aras turned out to be a strong cyclist, as long as he was tethered to a wagon, riding at a slow pace and on a straight road. In fact, he was able to follow so well, she found herself forgetting he was blind. It came as a surprise when, after several hours, Esther stopped without warning and he collided into the back of her wagon.

  “Watch it,” he said. His voice was muffled around the smoking paper he still had clenched in his teeth. Pilot, who had been trotting a pace or so behind, stopped as well. “What happened?”

  “Not sure,” she said over her shoulder.

  A hundred yards back, the road had expanded to four lanes as they left the protective shade of the forest. Esther knew that even with sunglasses, the brightness of the midday sky could play tricks on one’s eyes. Still, it couldn’t explain what she was staring at now. It seemed incomprehensible.

  The road ahead of them had vanished.

  Behind them, everyone else had stopped; they had seen it, too. Esther dismounted and walked down the road on stiff and aching legs, as the others waited. When she got closer, she saw that it wasn’t a mirage.

  The two-lane road ended abruptly, as did the land around it. Esther found herself on the edge of a steep cliff that seemed sheared from the mountainside they were on. She had to be careful not to stand too close to the crumbling edge as she gazed down; the earth under her feet was heavily cracked and seemed ready to give way.

  Far below, the ruins of a bridge that had once spanned the now-dry riverbed lay scattered on the pitted ground. From where she stood, she could make out giant slabs of concrete still painted with fading yellow lines, steel cables that lay tangled in thick coils, massive girders that were twisted and bent like a child’s toys. Together, they formed a broken path across to the other side, a quarter mile or so away, where the road picked up again.

  Aras stood at her side, his dog panting by his feet. He cocked his head, seeming to feel the sun on his face.

  “Hey,” he said. “What is it?”

  “There was a bridge,” she replied. “Now it’s gone.”

  He nodded. Then he bent down and brushed the ground with his free hand. He found what he was looking for and stood up. It was a large, gray rock the size of his fist. He threw it off the cliff. Esther watched it arc into the sky before dropping. A few seconds later, there was a distant clack as it hit the ground.

  Aras grunted. “That a long ways down,” he said.

  But Esther wasn’t listening. She was already investigating the side of the destroyed road, her feet scrambling over the remains of the bridge standing in the dusty shoulder.

  “Where’d you go?” Aras called. He sounded irritated. By the time she returned, he was leaning against the hood of a car left on the side of the road. “I don’t like when you walk off like that.”

  She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. “I wanted to see if there’s any way down.”

  He took a long drag, and when he spoke, it was in a strangled voice. “There ain’t.”

  Esther didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. It seemed that an earthquake had caused an entire section of the mountain to drop away, carving up the road as cleanly as if it had been sliced by a knife. The exposed cross section of earth was dry and crumbling, with tree roots that stuck out and dangled over thin air. It was impossible for anyone to make her way down, much less an entire party.

  Aras took her silence as confirmation. “This must of happened last year or two . . . first time I heard of it, anyways. We got to go back and try another road. Too bad, though. Long detour.” He stood up, and his dog got to its feet as well, its collar jangling.

>   But Esther didn’t move.

  “Ain’t you coming?” he asked. He turned to her, his dark glasses flashing in the sun.

  “It seems crazy to make a detour,” Esther said at last. “That’s going to add days.” She didn’t mention another fear: that the others, repelled and frightened by Aras’s callousness, might rebel altogether and refuse to follow.

  He laughed. “What you suggesting? We fly?”

  “No,” she said. “But there’s got to be something else.” After a second, she added, “We could lower ourselves down.”

  Aras grew silent. Esther assumed he was getting ready to dismiss the idea and braced herself for more of his scorn. Then to her shock, he nodded.

  “That ain’t the worst idea,” he said.

  By now, Eli had approached, his brow creased with concern. “Can we get across?” he asked. But Aras ignored him and was already pushing past, his dog nosing its way to the supply wagon.

  Esther saw Eli shoot the guide a look of pure hatred and spoke up hurriedly.

  “Come,” she said. “I need your help.”

  As she had hoped, Eli brightened at the suggestion. Together, they walked to the precipice. “We’re going to have to get down there,” Esther said.

  Eli glanced up sharply. “Whose idea is this? You or him?”

  Esther hesitated for only a second. “Mine.”

  The boy nodded. Then he too peered over the edge of the cliff, gauging the distance.

  “We need someplace secure,” Esther said. “Somewhere that won’t give under our weight.”

  Eli gazed at the ground, crumbling and cracked beneath their feet. When Aras returned, he was carrying a large coil of bright blue, braided-nylon rope. Eli addressed him.

  “Maybe we should try over here,” he said. “The pavement seems pretty strong, and we—”

  But Aras cut him off. “That stupid,” he said. “You can’t just throw a rope over and let people down.”

  Eli bristled, but before he could say anything, Esther touched his arm. “He’s right,” she said. “If the rope drags along the edge, it’ll wear down.”

  As Eli bit his lip, Esther turned to Aras. She had already examined the trees that edged the cliff on the side of the road, towering oaks and pines that grew so high, it was hard to see where they ended. “Maybe if we found a strong enough branch,” she said. “We could throw the rope over that, so it hangs clear of the edge. That way, we could—”

  “No,” Aras said, interrupting once again. “Same problem. The rope will wear down over the wood. And it’s still too heavy.”

  Eli’s face darkened. “Listen,” he said in a rough voice. He stepped toward Aras, his fists clenching by his sides. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t like how you talk to people. Why don’t you—”

  “Wait,” Aras said.

  It was as if he hadn’t been listening. He and his dog headed back to the supply wagon, where he groped around. When he returned, he was holding a large metal spool that held a short length of brown rubber cord.

  “That’s not long enough,” Eli started to say, but Aras ignored him; he was already pulling off the rubber cord and discarding it.

  “Give me the rope,” he ordered, and Esther handed it to him. As Aras spoke, he demonstrated.

  “We got to lower stuff without snapping the rope. So what we should do is take this”—he held up the spool—“and hang it away from the edge. We thread the rope over it and tie it to the thing we’re going to lower. And we do it that way.”

  Esther was concentrating, trying to understand. Then she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “That makes sense.”

  “So where can we hang this?”

  To her surprise, Esther realized Aras was addressing her. She took the object from him—threading her hand through its narrow core so it rested on her arm like an oversize bracelet—as well as a kitchen knife. She had identified a massive oak that was far enough from the cliff to be secure, but close enough so that its branches extended well over the drop. Now she stood before it as she looped the coil of nylon rope over her shoulder, as well.

  “No,” said Eli, “it’s too dangerous. Let me.”

  Esther shook her head, even as Aras snapped at him, “You weigh too much.” By now, Skar had joined them. She also met Esther’s eyes in a silent question.

  “It’s okay,” said Esther. “It’s my idea. I’ll do it.”

  She gazed up at the tree. It rose straight up and the lowest branches were more than twenty feet above her head. Yet Skar had taught her how to climb even the smoothest-seeming wall, and this was rough and pitted with knotholes.

  Esther began to pull herself up on the rough bark. She gripped the tiny bumps and cracks of the tree’s surface with her fingers and the battered tips of her sneakers, pausing every few feet to reassess her position and plan her next handhold. Even so, she moved upward with surprising speed and soon made it to the heaviest branch. Then, still holding the metal spool and length of nylon rope, she lay on her stomach and inched along its length, until she was far over the precipice.

  Working with meticulous care, Esther cut off a section of cable and strung the core on it. She then attached it to the branch, passing the cord around the thick limb again and again to make it as secure as possible. Then she knotted it tightly.

  Esther tried not to look down. She didn’t want to be distracted by what lay below; she couldn’t risk dropping anything. Yet when she glanced away for a moment, the world seemed to spin around her. Esther shut her eyes and counted to ten, clinging to the rough branch until she regained her composure. Then she opened her eyes, steeling herself to focus on the task at hand.

  Finally, the metal spool hung in place. Esther leaned forward, hugging the branch, and tested it; it rolled without a hitch. She took the coil of rope off her shoulder, threaded one thick end around the pulley, and secured it around her waist. Feeding out line as she went, she edged her way back along the limb and down the trunk. At last, she was able to jump to the ground, where Aras was waiting.

  “Did you tie it tight?” he asked. “Because if you didn’t—”

  This time, it was Esther’s turn to cut him off. “Of course.”

  Aras started experimenting with the rope, feeling how the pulley rolled and testing its strength as he pulled on it. “Seems about right,” was all he said.

  “What should we send down first?” asked Eli, but Aras shook his head.

  “It got to be somebody,” he said. “Someone got to make sure everything else steers clear of the wall.”

  Esther noticed that Aras didn’t say what was on everyone’s minds: that they had to send someone so they could see if the pulley system worked or even held up. If it didn’t, whoever it was would plunge to a certain death.

  Skar reached for the rope but Esther was already there, taking hold of it and knotting a small loop in one end. “I’ll go.”

  Eli started to object, but Aras pulled him aside.

  “If she want to go, let her,” he said. “You best off staying here so you can help me bring down the others, anyway.”

  “It’s easy for you to tell someone else to go,” Eli retorted. “Since you can’t.”

  “I said,” Esther repeated, “I’ll go.”

  This quieted the two boys. As they took hold of the other end of rope, Esther stuck her foot into the loop. She wrapped one arm around the braided nylon, holding on to it with her free hand. Then she stood on the edge of the cliff.

  The air was thick with humidity. Far overhead, black dots circled in the air. She recognized them as scavengers, birds that lived off the dead. Did they know something she didn’t? She shook off the thought, smiling at her own superstitions.

  And with that, she stepped into the void.

  As Esther dropped and swung, she could feel her weight yanking on the rope and straining the pulley attached to its branch high overhead. So far, it seemed to be holding. She kept her eyes open, and as she dropped back, Esther extended both a hand and
her free foot to absorb the impact when she collided with the dusty cliff face. As she bounced off, she began to spin, faster and faster, as the rope straightened. She had not expected this and feared that she would lose her grip. Any more acceleration, and she would be thrown to the rocks below.

  Then as her friends paid out the line a few inches at a time, the revolutions grew slower and slower. Soon, she was heading straight down. The ground came rushing up to meet her and dizzy yet safe, she stepped onto it with her free foot.

  “Made it!” she called up.

  The next to try was Skar. She had brought another long length of rope; she tied one end to the cord supporting her and dropped the other end. This Esther used to stabilize her friend from below, steering her away from the cliff wall. After Skar made it down, the nylon cord with its guideline was pulled back up. Then Asha, Michal, Silas, Joseph, and Kai followed, the last wailing from inside a wooden crate. After everyone was safely on the ground, Eli and Aras lowered the four bicycles and two wagons, one at a time, to those who waited below.

  Eli came next. He was the heaviest, and Esther wondered how Aras alone could handle the task of lowering him. But again, their guide surprised her with his strength. Eli made it safely; the pulley had held up well.

  Esther was gazing upward, waiting for Aras, who was securing his dog in the wooden crate that had held Kai. They had agreed that after he sent the dog down, he would lower himself last of all. But a touch on her arm made Esther look back.

  Skar was pointing at the horizon.

  “We have to hurry,” she said.

  At first, Esther didn’t know what she meant. Then she realized that a heavy wind was blowing. The sun had disappeared and, in its place, turbulent clouds filled the sky. The stiff wind swept unchecked across the dry and exposed riverbed, blowing grit that stung the skin and blinded the eye. As Esther watched, distant lightning flickered along the horizon.